


Classroom

by alezander



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blushing, Character Study, Crushes, Dialogue, Gen, High School, M/M, Sleepy Boys, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-07 20:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alezander/pseuds/alezander
Summary: An asocial boy engages in a conversation with his sleepyhead classmate during a History class film showing and leaves with a revelation. Maybe even a little crush.





	Classroom

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _eye contact_
> 
> This is eye contact in the sense of actually "seeing" someone for the first time rather than just meeting someone's eyes.
> 
> I'm not very fond of taking prompts literally. If you're like me, I'd wanna be your friend~

Picture this.

History class, the lights are dimmed and everyone in the class is either asleep, taking notes, doodling, chatting or asleep. This boy I'm going to talk about is one of them, the sleeping ones, I mean. During normal occasions he'd be seated at the leftmost side, students' point of view. Leftmost, back row. The seat closest to the cleaning supplies closet and farthest from the windows. It's not the coolest seat, but it gives the freedom of not being bothered, so no one could've blamed him for becoming a sleepyhead. Or "sleep enthusiast", as he would sometimes explain if he was in one of his more energized moods.

Anyway, that is for usual times. This circumstance is a special one. The teacher had instructed everyone to bring their chairs as close as they could to the teacher's desk so as to better see the unbelievably small screen of the school laptop. Of course, all the boys and girls were thrilled because this was high school and everyone is as hormonal as any healthy teenager could get. "Gotta get that space next to the person you like" kind of thing. Of course. Me, I rolled my eyes at the teacher's sloppy excuse for not booking a proper projector. Like seriously, you had one job and you still messed up? My friends, who were used to my cynicism, trotted ahead happily with hopes of sitting beside the pretty girls.

Of course.

So the chairs are in a cluster in front of the laptop, right? No arrangement, just pure randomness. So it wasn't impossible for the boy and I to sit beside each other. And we did sit next to each other. Not that he noticed, no he didn't. Not yet. He was fast asleep, dead to the world around him, and for a moment I envied him because in a way, he was free and unchained by judgement. Sure, people could still make their comments about him but the fact that the subject of their teasing was sleeping away, made him the winner. It showed an indifference of some sort. Something that I never had.

Sometimes it woke me up at night. The thought of how people perceived me. Normally I would grit my teeth and get through the day always pushing myself forward, being assertive before the others started noticing how indecisive I was. You hear about how bullies attack first but only because they were afraid they'd get hurt if they didn't act tough. I'm like that, but only in terms of disposition. Judge others before I get judged. Almost too arrogant, like a narcissist. I can't help it. The truth is, I'm a small person and I'm weak.

"What?"

I started. The boy was awake and he was looking straight at me. His eye contact was intense, and it didn't help that his irises were the color of hazy slate. I wouldn't have known that he had been sleeping if it weren't for his prominent bed head sticking out.

"You," the boy spoke again. "You have something to say?"

They were mesmerizing, his eyes. Like being absorbed. It was as if I had fallen straight into them and I cannot look away. But what was most captivating about them was that the indifference that I associated with him earlier while he was asleep, had not dissipated. It was still there, clear and hard in his gaze. I vaguely remembered glancing at his defined eyebrows, but my attention kept going back to his eyes for more. It was still there, the cool indifference. No, it wasn't indifference. It wasn't something so arrogant and condescending as indifference. It was self assurance. Confidence. A quiet, limpid strength.

"Judgement." I began, my Adam's apple bobbing as I swallowed. "You aren't afraid of it."

My voice had unknowingly lowered to less than a whisper, but the boy caught my words nonetheless. Now that he was awake, I saw that he had steely concentration. Even his nose seemed to be twitching as if smelling the fluster in me.

"Do I have to be?"

He whispered back, but it wasn't the agitated whisper I made. His was a placid tone, silky but dry. Like milk running across rocks. Off to the front the teacher finally fell asleep just as the movie was reaching its climax. The others howled and made cheering noises in excitement. I shivered when little hairs raised. Youth. Always hated it, the clichéd rules and traditions of it. Being one among the multitude was disgusting.

"Many do."

I only supplied. My words felt weak against the boy. He pushed his torso up with his arms and after stretching, he exhaled a deep breath and cocked his head while looking at me. Rather, into me. It was then that I realized that there was no use keeping up pretenses in front of this boy. I suddenly understood. This boy does not sleep out of hobby, he sleeps because he has seen a lot of the world. But he's so young. No, he is an old critter in a boy's figure. For a moment I felt as if all my efforts, cynicism and pretences, all my acts were useless.

"And are you?"

He asked simply, his tone carrying no judgement or biases. It occurred to me that it had been a while since I was asked such an innocent question, one that wasn't rhetorical or cloaked with malice. My plastic pride allowed me to feel flattered that I was being taken seriously. Well, maybe not gravely serious. He made me want to answer sincerely regardless of our relationship.

"Yes." The word fluttered from my lips, spoken with a puff of breath. My gaze dropped to my hands which I had unconsciously opened and placed on the armrest, relaxed and palms up. My body practically just admitted that it wanted to be honest. Is this an effect from talking to him? I wondered, my eyes locked back up to his. "I'm chasing away a 'me' that isn't real. I feign indifference but actually I care, but that's not 'cool' either." I said, chuckling at how silly my insecurities sounded.

"Sounds tiring."

His eyes darted towards the front for a second as he spoke. Against my will, my head turned to the direction he had looked and spotted one of my friends and a girl he fancied holding hands secretly amidst the chaos of excited teens. I felt my cheeks flush and I looked away, back to the boy who was now jotting down something on his notebook. I resisted peeking but the boy, as if sensing my curiosity, turned the page a little so I could see. He was only drawing circles. Then the circles turned to gentle slopes, then to knuckles and fingers. My eyes lifted and we made eye contact. A corner of his lips lifted and some pink dusted his cheeks too.

I realized then that this person was not distracted at all. He was very observant, on the contrary. But the ability to remain silent of whatever he noticed? That was something not everyone else could do. It was so common and so easy to tattle, to be part if the discussion and force one's opinions down other people's throats. He was not interested in this. Previous pages of his notebook were crisp and rumpled, some of the edges inked and pressed. How many more had he drawn?

"Do you practice a lot?"

I asked, unconsciously leaning forward and hoping to see more. The boy nodded, his pencil moving so quickly and bringing the intertwined hands to life.

"You won't be so preoccupied with what other people think or say when you have something you like." He murmured, the tips of his fringe brushing the paper. "You become full of what you create, you don't need others to do it for you." The boy looked up, patting his stomach as if to emphasize how content he was with himself. He looked so different from his usual sleepy self. He looked so alive, even more than the most popular kids in school with their exciting lives. This was a whole new level of individuality, so detached from the crowd and yet still drifting in it. To be full of oneself?

"You realize that sounds a lot like narcissism?" I suggested just as when some of the others had begun to stifle sobs due to the movie's dramatic ending. The credits rolled. My time with the boy was slowly ticking away. And yet I felt betrayed by him, tricked. "How is that any different from posting stuff online, begging for attention? Being vain?"

I thought he was different.

The boy's gaze softened as he looked at me. "Do you get it?" He closed the notebook slowly, his pencil trapped inside it. He tucked his arms over his armrest and laid his head upon it. He yawned.

I frowned. "No, I don't." Was he really going to end this conversation without giving me an answer?

"I'm sorry for confusing you."

He said, closing his eyes and drawing a long breath as he gathered himself back to sleep. I stared at him, wondering what he meant. The feeling of betrayal disappeared the moment he fell silent. Now that I had spoken to him, he seemed to float down back to just being a normal boy, and yet the strength that wafted from him was not ordinary for a teenager. He hovered between the earth and the sky, and I felt desperate to reach him up where he was in the clouds, wanting to understand him and to become his equal.

I want to be his equal?

"Hey, let's go grab lunch." My friend, the one who I saw earlier, slapped me hard on the back. He only laughed when I gave him a dirty look. The lights have been turned on, the teacher was gone along with the projector and laptop, and everyone was shuffling out the room. "You've been chatting with sleepyface here?" He asked, referring to the boy who had begun to drool a little. I nodded yes. "He's cool, very unconventional kid, but cool." My friend said before leaving to go with the others.

I turned back to the sleeping boy, knowing how much of a creep I must have appeared. And yet the boy himself was uncaring. He simply didn't care. "Oh," I gasped, surprising myself. I finally got it, what the boy was trying to say. The boy was just the same as all of the others, ordinary and sometimes vain. And yet because I judged him to be different I felt betrayed when he showed that he wasn't. He never owed me anything, and he didn't care that I was mistaken about him. He didn't care, he simply didn't care!

"You have surpassed my expectations, boy." I told his sleeping figure, my body buzzing with this new discovery. I felt freer than I have ever been my whole life. I felt like I could do anything, it didn't even occur to me to check if there were still others in the classroom.

"Mmn." The boy groaned, turning his head the other way so I could see his features better. My heart thumped so hard that it felt like my whole body shook. If I could gain so much just by talking to this person once, how much more would I learn if we became friends? My mouth felt dry as I considered it.

"Hey."

I jumped in my seat. The boy had woken up and he was looking at me again, his slate grey eyes fixed on me. The cheek he had been sleeping on was pressed red. I didn't know why but I blushed.

"You have something more to say?"

The boy said it in the same neutral, uncaring tone he used to speak to me earlier. The lids of his eyes were only partially raised, his face a picture of nonjudgmental indifference. The boy had untangled his arms and straightened his back, however, and his posture indicated that he was in no mind to return to his nap soon. I perceived this behaviour as eagerness. Maybe I wasn't the only one who learned something from earlier, and perhaps he also wanted to be 'friends'.

I unconsciously smiled, the thought of becoming closer nestling into a fuzzy feeling in my gut. "Do you..." I trailed, distracted by the way his irises thinned into gray rings. My neck felt warmer and I was sure it had turned red. I cleared my throat. "I want to have lunch with you. Will you come?" I managed to say, a breath of relief snagged inside my chest when he answered.

"Oh." The boy's cheeks pinked again. His mouth hung open for some moments as he thought it over, before pulling out a box wrapped in a cloth bag. "I brought lunch with me."

I didn't want to think it, but a little voice in my head kept insisting that I had just been completely rejected, pushed away from the prospect of friendship. I persuaded the voice to shut up, and that the boy had every right to refuse anyway. He could also keep his peaceful, sleep infused days better. I pressed my lips together, unable to stop the look of disappointment from hijacking my face as I nodded and started to turn away.

"Maybe tomorrow, we can go."

The boy suggested, his voice a little louder than usual. And higher. I turned to face him again. He was looking down on his boxed lunch, a finger gingerly rubbing the cloth so in place of his cheeks, I saw his ears reddening instead. Another thump rattled my chest. Whatever I was feeling, I could not wait to understand it. With his help, of course.

"Sure. Let's do that."

**Author's Note:**

> _One day, you'll realize that people just don't care._
> 
> Someone told me this just as I was about to enter college and my whole world changed ever since. This is my thanks to her.


End file.
